London (CNN) -- High-level talks to defuse the Ukraine crisis, due to be held by the U.S., Russia, the EU and the Kiev government next week, amount to a big personal test for John Kerry after a notably accident-prone first year as U.S. President Barack Obama's secretary of state.

Kerry's State Department failed to see the Ukraine crisis coming and may have inadvertently helped to provoke it. They pushed too hard as the EU moved to cement closer ties with the former Soviet republic. Then, when Ukraine's elected, pro-Russia president was forcibly overthrown, the U.S. barely concealed its satisfaction.

The conviction that Washington deliberately engineered the Kiev "coup" predictably enraged Russian President Vladimir Putin. He decided he would try a bit of direct intervention of his own. The result was last month's annexation of Crimea and the apparent, continuing Russian military threat to eastern Ukraine.

A bit dishonest here. Russia itself is at fault for the crisis in Ukraine. It’s goons were marching all over Ukraine and working with Putin’s Puppet to rob and commit violence against the Ukrainian people. You can’t blame the U.S. for somehow forcing the abuser to abuse even more than usual after their back hands failed to receive the initial desired result.

I’m really learning to appreciate how a real president knows how to run global relationships and global affairs and operations, in a way that he can always influence events, and if he can’t change a result, he at least has chess pieces to play, that shifts the game in our favor, and against the bad guys, if not now, tomorrow, constantly pressuring and influencing things to fit our aims.

I really wish we had some grownups in office now.

10
posted on 04/11/2014 11:31:00 PM PDT
by ansel12
((Libertarianism offers the transitory concepts and dialogue to move from conservatism, to liberalism)

Obama’s diplomacy of dithering, dabbling dilettantism has opened the door for Putin to restore his empire.
It seems to me that those who support Putin’s restoration of the Soviet Empire under a new banner must be pleased with the bumbling and flat-footed approach of Obama and Kerry.

They did a cost benefit analysis and decided there were few risks to taking Crimea now. But there is a cost. Crimea will cost money to the Russians for pensions and infrastructure for very little benefit to the Russian people. Empires do cost. And the Russians will have to spend even more on defense now because everyone else in their area of the world will be doing the same.

Secretary Kerry is a fool. No one respects him and his judgment and no one wants to go out of their way to make him look good.

And the ineffectual poking at Russia have only shown the world the limits of American power. Never make a threat you can’t enforce.

The Ukraine crisis is likely to be settled on the terms Russia wants because without Russian cooperation - no settlement will work.

What is clear in Ukraine and in everything else in the last year, Kerry was President Obama’s most disastrous second term pick. One can see what kind of a President his Secretary Of State would have made.

His predecessor Hillary Clinton did nothing of real consequence. But then she also did America and its interests no real harm.

Actually Obama erased his own “red lines” and left the French who had pushed for US intervention in Syria holding the bag. Into that vacuum stepped the Russians. They have racked up significant gains at minimal costs - and the sanctions are likely to be dropped sooner or later. America is a declining power in retreat.

Actually Crimea has a lot of valuable gas and oil beneath its sea shelf waiting to be exploited - and the potential is considerable. The profits from its development will more than offset any potential liabilities stemming from its acquisition for Russia. This is made clear by the sanctions America slapped yesterday on the Crimean state energy company Chernmorneftegaz to discourage its transfer to Russia’s gas behemoth Gazprom.

Yeah, the whole “engineering a coup” thing was going through Putin’s mind during the years when he was installing his well-paid corrupt puppet regime, and like any other gangster, he didn’t like it when his victims fought back. Dhimmihood — it’s not just imposed by muzzies anymore.

Well said. And Putinistas demonstrate their Dhimmihood of the mind daily on FReeREpublic by paying homage to Putin , the Emperor of the neo-Russian empire, the Czar, the President for Life, and the Gangster Statesman.

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